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Becoming a mother to 2 months old baby and having an exclusive breastfeeding equals frequent nursing day and night. For me, having my baby sleep next to me is way easier than having her to sleep by herself in the crib. I tried once with my older son when he was her age but he never wanted to sleep alone in the crib at night and only sleep by himself in the crib during the day time nap. And so with Naomi I just took the wagon and avoid the hassle of trying to put her to sleep in the crib.

There are actually different types of co-sleeping, such as: bed sharing (which is what I use currently), sidecar arrangements, different bed in the same room and child’s welcomed to parents room when needed which is letting the kids come to parents bedroom at night after overnight sleep in their own room (this might work for older child).

Having to be on the same bed with my baby helped with my nursing schedule and also makes her sleep more. A night time nursing is still needed during the early days of a baby because they still need to nurse every two hours and by having her sleep so close to me means that I could immediately nurse her before she is fully awake. That said, I don’t have to go all the way to the next room to pick her up with a chance that she is fully awake from crying, but instead I could immediately pick her up as soon as I hear noises and comfortably sits on my bed and nurse her while she is still half asleep. I did tried to nurse her in bed with a sleeping position (me in a sleeping position), she can do it but since afterward we both ended up sleeping directly without me burping her, I found that sometimes she got difficulty in breathing or throw up. Therefore, if any of you decided to co-sleep on the same bed with the baby, please remember to always sit while nursing and burp your baby before putting her back to sleep.

Sleeping on the same bed is also a way for me to bond and maintain relationship with my baby, especially in less than a month I will go back to my daily work with an 8 to 5 working schedule.

However, I must say that with such benefit comes some consideration such as:

There’s a possibility of difficulty to wean your baby, particularly for breastfeeding babies, because they are familiar with the smell of the milk hence they almost always wakes up repeatedly at night time for long nursing.

With a baby in the bed, parents will have less quality time alone together to catch up with their life and let’s not talk about our sex life. If that happens, make sure you make the effort to plan some time alone with your spouse because belief me, that spontaneous time will never come.

If you have your baby to sleep together, it might be harder to persuade her to move to her own room because she already built such dependent to us the parents. But most kid, happily move out once they are ready.

So before you decide to co-sleep with your baby, make sure you do these first:

Check with the baby, if you found your baby get all fussy and reckless while sleeping on the same bed, probably that’s not the best situation for you to be. She might want to sleep on her own comfy crib.

Check for the safety of having a co-sleep on the same bed. I found this useful tips from babycenter.com

Now that you’ve read my post, what do you think? Are you going to co-sleep with your baby or not?

Having a newborn, now almost two months old baby, I planned to have an exclusive breastfeed for at least a year. But with my past history of lack breast milk supply, I thought the idea of giving just breast milk is nearly impossible. Until I met the lovely nurse at my local clinic where I gave birth. Nurse Darti, that’s what she is called. Our incidental meet up was due to Naomi’s sudden request to have blue light treatment for a couple of days at the clinic. She was posted at the baby’s room where Naomi is put for treatment.

Since the other treatment for Naomi’s yellow-ish skin is breast milk, the nurse and the doctor asked me to provide expressed milk every one hour which I thought quite impossible with my previous history of combining formula milk with a bit of express milk. But then the nurse told me about a specific plant which locally known as “daun bangun-bangun” in Sumatera. She said it’s a Bataknese secret ingredients in producing lots and lots of breast milk.

I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about the plant, because I’m just a person who trust the doctor more than traditional remedy. However, being the in-law of a Bataknese, my father in-law asked around and found out that there’s a seller in Jakarta where he then purchase and send it to me. He told me he got it at Pasar Senen in the Pasar Inpres section in Bataknese district.

He told me to cook it with meat as “gulai”, so my mum quickly do her magic and cooked me the “bangun-bangun gulai”. I eat this meal twice a day on lunch time and dinner. At first it taste weird, with texture I never experience before. However, believe me when I say that my breast milk supply has increased ever since. Naomi almost two months old now, and I have not yet turn my self to the formula nor have I even tried to think about using it.

It is such a good result that I ended up telling people, family, relatives and friends who are currently nursing so they can have the same assurance as I am. And also because of that, I did a little bit of research on the web to know more about the health and benefit of this plant.

With a latin name Oleos Amboinicus (then) now known as Plectranthus Amboinicus, is a large succulent herb, fleshy and highly aromatic, much branch, possessing short sort erect hair with distinctive smell (Wikipedia). I personally think that it looks a lot like mint plant. Based on several articles around the web, this plant has so many benefit including: anti tumor and cancer. But there is also the benefit of increasing breast milk for nursing mum.

Since it contains high iron, fiber, magnesium and potassium, this plant when consumed will combined its nutrient with the breast milk resulting a healthy weight baby. In terms of helping or boosting the breast milk supply, this plant contains polyphenol, flavonoid, prolactin, and oxytocin which boost the nursing hormone.

So who said that we can’t exclusively breastfeed our baby? Turns out what seems to be impossible five years ago now is possible. And I hope this information will be able to help other nursing mum to never give up. Oh, my top tips: get enough rest (sleep), drink plenty of water, eat frequently or at least sufficiently and try to maintain the skin to skin (direct breastfeed) to the baby.